Is Religious Attendance Bottoming Out? An Examination of Current Trends Across Europe

Abstract

The purpose of this research note is to summarize the available data on trends in religious attendance across 24 European countries to determine whether a base level has been reached in some countries. We focus on the changes observed in the period 1990–2012. After critically assessing the data quality of the recent European Social Survey (ESS) and European Values Study (EVS), we present four different methods of assessing current trends. First, we assess intercohort differentials, an indicator previously used extensively. We then look at trends in young people's rates of attendance, followed by trends of the postwar cohorts born in 1950–1981. We proceed to an appraisal of individual life‐course variations by looking at attendance as a child and young adult. A compilation of these indicators shows that they often do not fully agree on whether there is growth, decline, or stability. To generalize, the high‐attending Catholic countries are more likely to exhibit religious decline, whilst a few ex‐communist countries are seeing sustained growth. The most secular countries seem to be generally stabilizing in the 5–20 percent range for attendance rates of the postwar generations.

Religious Change among Cohorts in Eastern Europe: A Longitudinal Analysis of Religious Practice and Belief in Formerly Communist Countries

“…As reported in the theoretical section of this paper, many studies have noted a revival of church attendance, especially for Romania, Bulgaria, and the Russian Federation (Pollack 2003;Burkimsher 2014;Brenner 2016). Many other studies (e.g.…”

“…This is, of course, a general picture, and we can pinpoint the main possible exceptions: Russia, Romania, and Bulgaria (Brenner 2016;Burkimsher 2014). The literature hints at this idea of diverging trends, especially in Tomka's (2010) discussion of an interpretation of religion that deviates from tradition by becoming more diverse and individualistic.…”

Cross-National Trends in Religious Service Attendance: Table 1.

“…In their analysis of more than 30 European countries in five categories-Northern, Western, Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe-using EVS data, Voas and Doebler (2011) also discovered evidence for a small uptick in religious attendance in Italy and other Southern European countries (Malta, Portugal, and Spain) in addition to an unlikely location: the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden). Using the past two decades of EVS and ESS data, Burkimsher (2013) also discovered an uptick in Denmark, the only such increase in the 14 European countries analyzed.…”

“…This slight uptick in attendance was also detected in analyses of Hungarian attendance rates from WVS and ISSP by Froese (2001), who noted that this period effect reversed itself relatively quickly. Burkimsher's (2013) analysis of EVS and ESS data for 24 European countries found evidence for increasing rates of attendance in Russia, and to a lesser extent Romania and Bulgaria, but also decreasing rates of Mass attendance in Poland and Slovenia and low and stable attendance in other post-communist countries like Estonia and the Czech Republic. Thus, in summary, findings in Eastern Europe also fail to demonstrate any strong and consistent pattern of increased attendance.…”

Childlessness in Switzerland and Austria

“…In Switzerland there is a more even split between the Catholic and the Reformed (Protestant) denominations, and affiliation with these churches is mixed across both regional and linguistic lines. In both countries the proportion of the population with no religious affiliation is growing, and young people attend religious services much less frequently than older people (Burkimsher 2014). In Switzerland, religious affiliation was recorded in the 2000 census.…”